The present invention relates to brewing apparatus for producing a brewed beverage from a beverage brewing substance. More particularly, the present invention includes a beverage brewing apparatus having a brewing device and a substance dispensing device.
In recent years it has become increasingly popular for restaurants, franchise operations and other food service institutions to serve fresh brewed coffee from "fresh-ground" coffee beans. This popularity has created an increasing demand for coffee bean grinders to provide such fresh ground coffee. A variety of coffee grinders are available from a variety of manufacturers which store a large quantity of beans for dispensing to a grinding mechanism. In many settings, one grinder will be used to grind both regular coffee and decaffeinated coffee. These dual purpose grinders include two hoppers and a mechanism for selectively dispensing beans from one of the hoppers.
Many grinders provide structures for retaining a brewing funnel or receptacle near the outlet of the grinder so as to catch the grounds as they are dispensed from the grinder. User selectable controls are provided to allow a user to select a predetermined quantity of coffee. Also, grinders have been developed which interactively weigh the ground coffee dispensed from the grinders so as to accurately produce a required quantity of coffee.
A problem with the prior art devices is that an operator is required to carry out several steps in order to brew coffee. For example, the operator must prepare a brewing funnel with a filter paper, position the brewing funnel on the grinder to catch the ground coffee dispensed by the grinder, select a quantity of coffee to be ground, activate the grinder, remove the brewing funnel and ground coffee from grinder and place the brewing funnel in the brewing device, and set up the brewing device for the desired volume of brewed coffee and initiate the brewing cycle. The numerous steps in setting up and initiating the brew cycle as well as the placement, removal and replacement of the brewing funnel create many opportunities for problems to arise and errors to occur.
For example, if the funnel is not carefully moved from the grinder to the brewer the grounds could be spilled or contaminated. Additionally, the quantity of coffee ground by the grinder and the volume of coffee to be brewed at the brewer is prone to operator error and could be incorrectly set up. In other words, if an operator selects a quantity of ground coffee sufficient to brew a full pot of coffee, and then sets up the brewer to brew a half pot of coffee, the half pot of coffee will be undesirably strong since half the quantity of brewing water is used with a quantity of ground sufficient to brew a full pot. Similarly, too little ground coffee can be used with too much water resulting in a weak and often times bitter tasting brewed beverage.
The food preparation industry is striving for greater and greater automation to reduce errors, provide greater consistency, and increase efficiency. The current coffee brewing technology generally provides a satisfactory beverage when the coffee brewing devices are properly operated. When an operator does not comply with the prescribed procedures, available technology may not provide optimal results. As such, it would be desirable to provide a coffee brewing apparatus which minimizes the potential for operator error and increases efficiency.
Another problem with the prior art device is that the independent grinder and brewer require considerable counter space. In many areas of the food preparation industry, store space and especially counter space is at a premium. If the footprint for various essential equipment such as coffee grinding and brewing devices could be minimizes, another food preparation device could placed in the excess space or the excess space could be used for additional food preparation or other product sales. As such, it would be desirable to minimize the counter space requirement, or footprint, of a coffee brewing apparatus and grinder so as to reduce the space requirements for coffee brewing and thus provide more space for other purposes.